Abstract
Physicochemical factors, microbial population size and the properties of the bacterial isolates were estimated to find out the nature of soil ecosystem of Mt. Nam. Samples were obtained from the surface layer of soils on which specific plant community is developed. Average content of moisture and organic matter of the soils were 21.6% and 17.3%, respectively. These values were similar to those of developing forest soils, but were slightly lower than those of climax ecosystem such as Piagol in Mt. Chiri. Chiri. Content of phosphate was higher than those of other forest soils. The population size of soil bacteria ranged from 27.4 to 195.8 ${\times}\;10^5$ CFU/g. duy soil, and the size is somewhat dependent on the moisture and oranic matter content of soils. A large number of bacteria were able to decompose macromolecules such as starch, elastin and gelatin. Bacterial species composition of each soil was comparatively simple. Pseudomonas, Agrobacterium, Flavobacterium and Xanthomonas which are Gram-negative short rods were widely distributed in the forest soils. The endospore forming Bacillus species were also the main constituents of the soil microflroa. Actinomycetes were widely distributed in the forest soils, but the distribution pattern varied in each site. Most of the actinomycetes were also able to decompose organic macromolecules. The rate of resistant actinomycete strains to antibiotics and heavy metals were lower than those from cultivated soils, but higher than those from well-preserved forest soils. Antibiosis pattern of the actinomycete isolates was similiar to the resistance pattern. This means the forest soils of Mt. nam was somewhat interferred by artificial behabiour.